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Friendly tanning: young adults’ engagement with friends around indoor tanning

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Abstract

Indoor tanning (IT), particularly during early adulthood, increases risk for melanoma and is exceedingly common among youth. Social influence, including social norms, promotes IT but little is known about young adults’ engagement with friends around tanning. We examined IT behaviors and tanning-related communication with friends at three universities. Of 837 participants, 261 (31%) reported ever tanning (90% female, 85% White). Of those, 113 (43%) were former tanners and 148 (57%) current tanners. Current tanners reported more social tanning and discussions with friends about tanning, more frequent outdoor tanning, high propensity to tan, and greater lifetime IT exposure than former tanners. Risks-to-benefits discussion ratios were greater for former tanners. In adjusted analyses, current tanners were more likely to make plans to tan and to talk about tanning benefits with friends. Findings confirm IT is a social experience. Future work should examine social tanning’s role in the promotion and reduction of IT among youth.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to acknowledge our study participants for their time and valued contributions to this research. Support for this study was obtained from the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center Support Grant/Core Grant (P30 CA008748). Dr. Rodríguez was supported by a Training Grant (T32 CA009461).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, 641 Lexington Ave. 7th Floor, New York, NY, 10022, USA

    Vivian M. Rodríguez & Jennifer L. Hay

  2. Mitchell Cancer Institute, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

    Casey L. Daniel

  3. Department of Communication Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

    Brooke Foucault Welles

  4. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, Boston, MA, USA

    Alan C. Geller

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  1. Vivian M. Rodríguez
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  2. Casey L. Daniel
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  4. Alan C. Geller
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Correspondence to Vivian M. Rodríguez.

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Conflict of interest

Vivian M. Rodríguez, Casey L. Daniel, Brooke Foucault Welles, Alan C. Geller and Jennifer L. Hay declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Human and animal rights and informed consent

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Rodríguez, V.M., Daniel, C.L., Welles, B.F. et al. Friendly tanning: young adults’ engagement with friends around indoor tanning. J Behav Med 40, 631–640 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9832-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-017-9832-4

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